How Far
by StarrySkies
Summary: "So I'm gonna walk away, and it's up to you to say how far." Mac needs his space. MacStella


**Title:** How Far  
**Author:** StarrySkies  
**Rating:** T  
**Spoilers:** none  
**Disclaimer:** Nobody's mine. They belong to the big wigs at CBS. The title/concept comes from Martina McBride.  
**Summary: **"So I'm gonna walk away, and it's up to you to say how far." Mac needs his space. M/S.  
**A/N:** I don't know why I like them fighting so much, but this is all I seem to know how to write.

* * *

She gets a call at 2:30 AM. She doesn't remember looking at the caller ID to see who it was. The green glowing LCD screen blinded her sleepy eyes. She hears a frail voice on the other end of the line.

"Stella?"

"Mac?" Her throat is scratchy, and she sits up in bed before turning on a lamp, which blinds her even more. Her hand shields her face, and she hears him through the darkness.

"I need you."

And without a thought given to only the hour and a half sleep she'd gotten in prior to the call, she gets up, gets dressed and heads over to his place where he answers the door with a bottle in his hand.

She opens her arms to him after grabbing the beer from his grasp. He hides beneath her hair. His hands tug at the back of her collar as if to keep him from falling. The top button on her blouse is beginning to choke her, but she keeps quiet, listening to his sobs. She'd been waiting for him to finally get his emotions out. The last week in September, and he'd been holding it all in all this time. He remained stoic as he sat by Claire in the hospital, when she died two days later and he called Stella to let her know, during the entire funeral. She wondered how long he could keep up the tough Marine façade.

"Shhhh," she tells him, even though he's barely making a sound. She rubs his back with her free hand and feels his muscles tense beneath his shirt. "You're gonna be okay," she says softly.

After a moment, she feels his head turn inward to her and then feels his breath, then lips on her neck. She's shocked speechless as he makes his way up to her earlobe. "M--Mac?" Her voice is squeaky and nervous. She tries to pull away from him, but he keeps going. Her heart is racing to a blend of instinctive pleasure and conscious panic.

"I love you, Stella," he says in between breaths.

"Mac, come on, now. Stop." She reaches up and barely releases his grip from her shirt before she pushes him back. "Don't do that," she tells him, keeping a hand on his chest to hold him distant. "You don't know what you're doing." She can't tell how much alcohol he's had, but it must've been one hell of a night.

She leads him to his bedroom and forces him to sit down while she goes to get him some tea. By the time she returns with the cup, he's already passed out on the bed, feet still planted on the floor. She ends up crashing on the couch until 5 am when she gets up and heads back home to get ready for work.

* * *

He apologizes the next day for what he remembers of the night before. He hoped that when he said he was sorry for kissing her, she'd ask him something akin to "What in the hell are you talking about," say that it must've been some crazy fever dream, that she would have laughed in his face for fantasizing about her, and it would've been enough joke material for her to go on for weeks about. But when she says, "It's okay. I know you didn't mean it," she sounds mildly disappointed, and he knows that it hadn't really been a dream at all. He would gladly have preferred the ridicule. It would have died down eventually. But now, he's stuck with the truth. The truth, which never goes away.

* * *

It's well into November. She spends her days watching him from across the station, and her evenings wondering if he's too far gone to save. She brings him dinner after she forces him to leave work, though he's still got enough food from friends and family in the freezer to last a lifetime. She knows this. But she's developed a routine. Something Stella thinks he needs right now.

"I brought Chinese. 'Mr. Cham's.' I know you like their vegetable lo mein."

He only nods while she opens the carton and a package of chopsticks for him to sit at the coffee table. She clears away newspapers from the tabletop and returns empty glasses to the sink.

He takes a deep breath. "My wife died. I'm not suffering from malnutrition, you know," he informs her softly. "You don't have to keep bringing food over."

"I don't want you to go hungry."

"I won't."

"Do you want something to drink?"

"No," he answers blankly.

"Are you sure?" She points to the kitchen and adds, "'Cause I could--"

"God, Stella. I can't do this!" he stands up quickly.

"Do what?" she asks, startled.

"This. You. Here. All the time. I can't breathe. I -- I know you want to help. Believe me, I appreciate it all. But go home."

She stares at him for a moment and doesn't know what to do.

"Stella. Please." He looks her in the eye and tries to be patient with her, though inside he wants to scream at her until she finally hears that he's perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

"S--Sure." She bites the inside of her cheek as she grabs her purse and coat from the rack by the door. She doesn't even look at him as she lets herself out onto the porch.

Out of shame, he rushes out a moment later to apologize, but she's already a block away, head staring down at her feet, and he knows that she's really upset. Half a minute later, he reminds himself why he's mad, telling himself that she had it coming to her, and doesn't attempt to chase after her.

* * *

She walks down the sidewalk though she knows she should hail a cab, seeing as how the New York winter is almost in full-force and her apartment is at least 12 blocks away. But she doesn't. She doesn't notice the temperature. She's too numb to feel. Her footsteps echo in her ears. Memories raid her thoughts, not just of the last 10 minutes, but of the last ten years.

His demons are like shards of glass, cutting her to pieces. She's bleeding. She's bleeding for him, and she wonders if he even knows it. She's got enough demons of her own. Though hers seem to have taken up residence on a high and distant shelf after Claire's demise. She's long since stopped talking about when she was hurting. Those wounds have been stitched up with rotted thread that's sure to break loose sometime. But to her, it doesn't seem to matter much when she looks at him. Half of his world had been taken away, and neither of them can do anything about it. She's always been jealous that at least he had a whole world. She was born without one. And she can't remember if she cried at the funeral because Claire had passed or because her best friend had lost something so dear to him.

Through no conscious thought of her own, her body walks and walks until she finally reaches her apartment. She doesn't realize where she is until her feet stop pounding against the pavement.

* * *

He can barely look at her the next morning. She makes no effort either. They pass in the hall while she is on her way to her desk, and he's walking out the door. Aiden wonders if her eyes are deceiving her.

He calls Danny from the scene and tells him to retrieve some evidence to get started on with Stella while he begins interrogating suspects and following up on witnesses with Flack. Danny thinks nothing of this. He actually enjoys working trace with Stella.

"Hey Danny. Tell Mac that the prints I found on the bottle belong to the husband."

"Sure," he answers and dials Mac's cell, not knowing about last night's event.

"Taylor?"

"Yeah, Mac. Stella says the prints on the bottle are the husband's."

"Okay. What about the other one?"

"Yo, Stel," he calls across the lab. "What's up with the other bottle?"

"I haven't finished it yet," she calls back.

"She said she hasn't finished with it yet."

"I heard her. Just let me know when you find out."

"Sure thing."

Danny returns to examining the victim's dress under the microscope. She puts the print she lifted from the second bottle into the scanner and watches the computer come up with a match almost instantly.

"David W. Jenkins. Priors for assault," she says to herself. "2nd belongs to the brother-in-law, got 6 months in jail for assault charges last year," she tells Danny.

"All right. _Now_ we got ourselves an interesting investigation," he nods enthusiastically. He lives for these kinds of cases.

"Call him back."

"What am I? Danny Messer the messenger?" he quips.

"Nice to see you've got an official title now," she smiles.

"You're lucky I like you," he retorts and dials the boss' phone again. "I could give _you_ a couple titles… Mac?"

She laughs to herself at his last comment before walking out of the lab.

* * *

It's a week and a case later, and he enters the lab and sees her at pecking at computer keys. He walks in unnoticed, as she's extremely absorbed in the test she's running. She has a tendency to tune everything else out when she's focused. She doesn't blink at the screen until he steps to her shoulder and his shadow hovers over her. She looks up, finally sees him, and sighs.

"Don't worry. I'm leaving." She stands up from her chair, while her computer search is still whirring through possible matches, clearly not completed. Papers are gathered. File folders close.

"You don't have to do that."

"Do what?" She continues picking up her mess. He places a hand on top of the stack of folders, holding them down on the table, forcing her to look him in the eye.

"Avoid me like the plague? Pass information to me through Aiden or Danny? Insist on walking home or taking the subway when you know I could give you a ride? Leave any room I enter? Does any of that sound familiar to you?"

"Funny. Isn't that _just _what you asked me to do?" She glares at him with a hand on her hip.

"You know it's not." He glares back.

Stella reaches up and runs her hands through her curls before spitting, "You know, first you say, 'I need you, Stella.' So, I came over at 3 in the freaking morning simply because _you asked me to_. I get there, and you're drunk off your ass, kissing me, and telling me you love me. And I must be some kind of freaking _masochist_ because even after that, I tried to take care of you. And _then_ you say 'You're suffocating me, Stella.' Which is it? Do you need me or don't you? Where's that line gonna be? That line that I need to stay on one clear side of so there isn't any confusion -- where is it?"

"I -- I don't know," he says as he scratches the back of his head, something he does when he's nervous.

"Well, I need you to decide so we can either get on with it or give up on it. This constant tug of war is wearing me out, Mac. I… can't do it anymore."

He stands silent still, afraid to move or speak, though he doesn't really have an answer for her anyway.

"What? Do I need to transfer to another field?" she readily suggests.

"Don't do this," he warns.

She shrugs her shoulders at him in defeat. She's tired of talking, tired of waiting.

"I--" He sighs in between a nervous smile and a scoff. "I don't know what you want me to say, Stella."

"Don't worry about what I want. Worry about what _you_ want."

"You want me to choose between you and no you? Can't there be a happy medium?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

"What is this about?" he asks.

"I just told you what this was about. Were you even listening?"

"Of course I was. No, I mean, what is this _really_ about?"

She doesn't hesitate too long before she speaks. "It's about you. And me. And how you can't look past what happened in September and see that _I'm still here_." She swallows back a lump in her throat. "I'm still here, Mac. I've been here all this time. And you don't even see me."

"Of course I see you. Don't be ridiculous, Stella. I see you every day." He has an unusual urge to want to smile and can't fight it even though he knows she's close to tears.

"No, you don't." She shakes her head at him, finding his smile a bit patronizing, and bites her bottom lip before it can tremble too much. She's still waiting for him to really understand what she's saying. "I'm not asking you to forget about Claire. I'm just asking you to acknowledge me when I walk into the room. Maybe smile at me or laugh at one of my stupid jokes… I'm not dead, Mac. You're not either."

He doesn't know how to take the statement she's just made. In a way, he knows she's right. These past few months have dragged on, days blurring together. He is not entirely certain that he's even been breathing all this time. And of course, Stella's been there, making sure that he is still breathing. He hadn't realized that's what she's been doing all along. It wasn't about the food. Or the cleaning. She was helping him get through the days he was never sure he could get through. It's always been her.

"I'm sorry," he says. She looks up at him and is relieved that he may have finally gotten her point. "You're right. I will try to look harder."

The End.


End file.
